Valneva now has three commercialized vaccines and a Lyme disease candidate in Phase 3. Philip quizzes CEO Thomas Lingelbach about everything.

They also discuss the current political turbulence with vaccines, especially in the US, and how it is impacting the industry.

⭐️ ABOUT THE SPEAKER

A veteran in the development of more than ten vaccines, Thomas has spent over 30 years in the vaccine space and has served in senior roles at the companies Intercell, Novartis and Chiron. Thomas was with Intercell since 2006 and was the CEO when the company merged with Vivalis to form Valneva in 2013.

🔗 LINKS MENTIONED

• Valneva’s website – https://valneva.com/
• Valneva’s Half Year 2025 Financial Results – https://valneva.com/press-release/valneva-reports-half-year-2025-financial-results-and-provides-corporate-updates/
• Lovisa Afzelius, Flagship Pioneering 🇸🇪 | Company building, AI | E24 https://flot.bio/episode/lovisa-afzelius-flagship-pioneering/

Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro

Thomas Lingelbach: I find it 

fascinating in that it’s 

like a duck breeder family, but going to biotech, they created a subsidiary focusing on cell lines derived from duck. The vaccine industry was looking for alternatives to Embr native chicken because ated chick next were used and are still used for production of many, many.

A potential vaccine is considered by the market as a potential blockbuster indication. The outcome of this study will be quite transformational for the company. There is a relative negative vaccine environment in the us. Will vaccines still succeed in this environment? The current environment that we are seeing is of course, alarming in many respects.

I am a strong believer in science will win. I also do believe that the current situation in the US may allow Europe to become stronger.

Philip Hemme: Alright, great. Yeah. Thank you for, for the, for the intro. Welcome to, to an episode of the Flood Bio Show. I’m the founder of Flood Bio and Philip and on this show I’m interviewing the best Europeans in biotech to help. People in vo. So actually, who, who knows the show already? Thomas, you know it, but, okay.

Half. Great. So yeah, this episode is a bit special. Usually we record in, in the meeting room on the studio, but it’s great to be here on stage. We did it last year in Stockholm as well, and it went well. So we, we did it again. And yeah, today we will talk about being one of the best biotechs in Europe.

I think it’s true. Had some roots in, in, in Austria, actually here in Vienna has some roots and, and the other roots in France. Yeah, Val is basically a specialty vaccine company, has three products on the market. 700 employees, 400 of them are here in here in Vienna and market cap around 800 million dollars, which is very good.

So yeah, so I’m very excited to talk with, with Thomas here. Actually. It’s the first time we, I meet him offline. But actually I’ve known Val for quite a bit. I actually visited the Vallis office over 10 years ago, which is the, the former merger which was pretty cool. So, yeah, it’s cool to have you.

And just on the format as we are live, I will open up to, to questions throughout the conversation. So we have a mic, someone with a mic. So if you have questions, feel free, don’t be shy. It’s good to have a conversation to make it dynamic. So, so please give a round, round of applause for Thomas.

Yeah,

go for it. Yeah, that’s you, Mike. Alright. Welcome to the stage. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Great to see you all. I can see you have some familiar faces as well. 

Thomas Lingelbach: Yes, of course. I, I, I see a few fa familiar faces. It’s great to be here. And it’s great to be in my hometown. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.

[00:03:09] Duck cell vaccines

[00:03:09] Duck cell vaccines

Philip Hemme: So I wanna start actually like looking back at the story of Val, because I find it fascinating in, in quite a few ways. Like the whole, like the Vals, that it’s like a duck breeder family. But going to biotech, it’s quite amazing that you merged with a French company, a truly European company, and they were super successful.

And that you launched three, three drugs on the market, which is also quite exceptional. So could you maybe start with giving me an, like a quick overview of like, of inception to now? What were the significant milestones? 

Thomas Lingelbach: Yeah, very much so. Yeah. So of course we could write a book about it, but but let’s start a little bit with the history and how it all came about.

You know, the it all started with the purpose. Yeah. Because our mission is to develop, manufacture, and commercialize vaccines in areas of high unmet medical need. And and we thought that with the vaccine industry undergoing huge, huge consolidation. The big pharma companies left many vaccine indications untapped because they were either considered not big in us not commercially attractive in us but at the same time.

We thought it would be good to work on indications that can really make a change to people’s life. Yeah, that was the basic idea behind Val Neva Philip Hemme: on both sides. Intercell and Viva.

[00:04:55] The grandpa of French and Austrian biotech

Thomas Lingelbach: Yeah. And when we then come back to the two roots of Val Neva you mentioned already the, the Austrian part.

Incel. Incel was the first Austrian public listed biotech. And in a, it was very nice, was a very nice IPO as well was a very nice IPO and, you know, incel kind of is still today considered you know, the, grandma or grandpa of many, many Austrian biotechs. So you just became grandpa.

That’s why a classical, a classical as a, as a incubator. Intercell was focusing on a spec, a special class of vaccines at the time. And Valles. Actually worked on enabling technologies. Yeah. But primarily enabling technologies in the field of vaccine development. You mentioned cell cultures.

Yeah. Valles was originally owned by kmo. Yeah. Kmo, a company. Nothing to do with pharma. Yeah. Because they were leaders in animal genetic selection. And and as such, they created a subsidiary focusing on cell lines derived from ducks, namely duck duck stem cell lines. And and this was at a time where, you know, the vaccine industry was looking for alternatives to embr native chick necks because ated chick necks were used and are still used.

We’re used for production of many, many vaccines. Yeah. So to change this against a permanent cell line was of course a great idea. How much was it a stretch for the game? 

Philip Hemme: Because that’s what a bit fascinating because I mean, doing duck like the actual ducks versus vaccine is, is quite 

Thomas Lingelbach: like, well I would say for me it was a natural step for a company and a family that has always shown and proven to be very entrepreneurial.

Yeah. And as such to invest in a biotech arm was certainly a great idea and a, a major step. Now both companies Intercell and and Valles in 2011 and 12 experienced a few setbacks. And and therefore. We were looking into, you know, how can we rebuild something based on the strengths and how can we rebuild something, leaving also, you know, setbacks and failures behind and in a way reimagining what we may or may not do together.

And the French angle provided a great opportunity for. Seed funding of Val Neva. As you know, the first key investor was BPI France the French bank that provided us with the seed funding for the company. Hmm. And they have, how much was giving birth? It was around 40 million euros at the time.

And so we did a very complicated cross-border merger, 

Philip Hemme: which was quite a lot Because your, your market cap went down a lot. 

Thomas Lingelbach: Yeah, both companies were at about a hundred million market cap at the time. So we did a cross border merger at the same time, a capital injection from BPI France, who became the single largest shareholder.

And by the way, they are still the single largest shareholder today. 

Philip Hemme: Wow. 

Thomas Lingelbach: That’s also why the company is incorporated in France and you know what the headquarters is. Yeah. So we have, we have a registered office in France. But we have moved the operational headquarter to Vienna already a couple of years ago.

Okay. And yeah, so that’s, that was how Eva was created. Since that time, the Eva, as I said, focused on its mission and its vision. And we had at the beginning decided to work on one disease area, namely vector transmitted disease. Hmm. You know, vectors can be either mosquitoes can be ticks.

And as such we brought the first vaccine to market. This was just prior to the formation of Val Niva, namely a vaccine against Japanese encephalitis. And we then worked on, you know chicken guna as our second one. We also had a short inter met, so on COVID. UA as well. Yeah, cholera, we did not develop ourself.

Yeah. Okay. We acquired in 2015 a cholera vaccine, which in some markets has also an LTE tech label from j and j. Yeah. And built on the back of that a commercial infrastructure because at the beginning we had no own commercial infrastructure. We were partnering with big farmers. To commercialize our travel vaccines.

Yeah. And then, you know, with the second travel vaccine, after Japanese encephalitis, we were able to build our own commercial infrastructure, which we now have in North America. So Canada, us, uk, France, Spain looks, Austria, you know, all the key travel vaccine countries Co Okay. Yeah. Across the globe. 

Philip Hemme: Lot of things I want to bum to bum into, but the, the.

The French headquarter thing is, is a, a bit a funny one because I think some people think you’re a French company, but actually, I mean, most of the, the employees are also in Vienna and you’re, but you’re still quite, I mean, you’re basically quite European company and even in, even into, in terms of employee spread.

So it’s, 

Thomas Lingelbach: yeah, I would say you have a manufacturing in Scotland as well. Yeah, as I said, I mean, the, the, the, the setup we have today is, we are a bit more than 700 employees. Yeah. We have about. Bit less than a hundred in, call it the commercial environment. Yeah. In all the different countries where we have our operations we have two manufacturing sites one in Scotland.

You don’t outsource any manufacturing. We have outsourced, basically Phil Finnish. So we are working in the field finished area mainly with CMOs. Yeah. But all drug substance, so API manufacturing basically is in house. And you still use the cells? Not well. We are using them for some of the develop developmental products, not for any of the commercial products because unfortunately the environment around alternative cell lines.

Changed quite drastically about 10 years ago. Okay. And that’s why for example, EB 66 cell line that originally came from Valles Yeah. Is very well established in the vet vaccine industry. Okay. There are many veterinarian vaccines that use this cell line, but no human vaccines except for safety or what’s the reason?

No, because, because other cell lines just dominated the regulatory landscape. And became a standard of choice viral cells. And and therefore there were only very few vaccines that that used primarily in the vet space. But there were also pandemic influenza vaccines through GSK, for example, that use CB 66.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And one, one thing on the, still, on the, on the, what I want to ask is, what I found also quite remarkable is that. You merged, but you also were co CEO with, with Frank gmo for like a long time, basically. 

Thomas Lingelbach: No, we were not, we were never co-CEOs, no. So I, I think I was CEO from day one. Okay. But we had a structure where by Frank was kind of number two.

Yeah. In the management team. But we operated always in. Close partnership. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: So and that’s something that we did until earlier this year when Frank decided to leave. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Well that’s quite unique actually. I mean, with merger, I mean, you, it’s, it’s a merger, so when, but usually in a merger, you always have one, one party dominating more.

O often look, 

Thomas Lingelbach: I mean, mergers, mergers are a little bit like a marriage. It has to evolve over time. And and I think we we had a great relationship and of course things develop further since work. I work out in ways that you have potentially not initially predicted it to be. But so we have been quite pleased about the evolution of all.

Yeah. And why, 

Philip Hemme: why did he leave and why did the Remo family sell a lot of the shares? Like, 

Thomas Lingelbach: well, I think you should ask the Remo family. So I, they’re not here, so I, no, I, I, I would say, I would say Frank Frank has been, you know, a founder already of Valles. Yeah. And then, you know, after more than 12 years.

Being in total like 26 years, he decided, he decided that he would still like to do something different. Yeah. And of course we accepted that most themselves. I mean, they have been supportive for many, many, many years. And they are still a key shareholder of Eva also. They reduce their position. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah.

[00:15:09] Products for chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis and cholera

Philip Hemme: And talking about the products, I, I’m curious on the, if you can just. Talk about the, the economics and also how do you differentiate compared to existing products. 

Thomas Lingelbach: So let’s start with commercial products. As I said, we are commercializing travel vaccines. Yeah. We have unique positions in that field.

Our Japanese encephalitis vaccine is the only vaccine against Japanese encephalitis licensed in the main. Travel jurisdictions, US, Europe. So you have almost specific like monopoly. Yes. Then we have cholera. We have the only cholera vaccine that has also a secondary label against LTE positive vtech in most of the countries.

And again, we are by far the leader in that field. We were then the first company in the world that, licensed vaccine against Chi gya. Yeah. Which is right now undergoing, you know, many, you know, market access processes and new licensure processes in different countries especially in countries where the Chi Goya virus is permanently endemic, like low medium income countries, for example.

So again, a key differentiator, differentiator on chicken Goya is also that we decided to work on a life attenuated vaccine. Yeah. That gives after a single shot, a very long protection. A little bit like yellow fever, probably, you know, more than 10 years. And then as I mentioned, after the creation of Al Niva, we focused on vector transmitted diseases.

And of course the big, the big transformational readout for Eva will be our lime Yeah. Vaccine. And so we will, in the next coming months we will have a major, major, you know, phase three readout. Let’s 

Philip Hemme: talk about that. Just after on the, on the, I saw there’s quite some bumps as well. 

Thomas Lingelbach: Well, I mean, you know, life, life in our industry, and I’m sure that when you tour the.

Stage here, everyone is gonna talk about the, the famous biotech rollercoaster, right? There is always an up and a down. And there was always two steps ahead, and then there is a step back. The important thing is that net, you just go ahead. And yeah, we had, with chicken gya, we had a great success on the development side.

We we were able to develop an efficacious. Good and safe vaccine. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: We we had a setback over the summer because the US FDA suspended the license. And for reasons that are still not entirely clear to us. And but we are commercializing the vaccine. We are entering into new regulatory approvals.

And and it is a very good vaccine. And the next steps we have to see. 

Philip Hemme: And how, how was it to deal with French politicians when the, I think, when the renewal crisis happened? 

Thomas Lingelbach: Well, so first of all, I mean, the, the French government has, has always been supportive of Van Neva. It’s probably not politically correct to talk.

How about how easy the French government is compared to others? I’m just, I like, I like dealing with I mean I’m, I’m, I’m half French, 

Philip Hemme: but I’m just, what I observed that the French is, is typically quite top down. Even BP France is very political. So usually when PP forces is invested then it becomes quite political, quite rapidly, and when it becomes a health issue, then you have a lot of ministry and et cetera.

So that’s why what I’m asking basically 

Thomas Lingelbach: is an emerging problem. Yeah, it’s an emergent problem in in all the islands under French control. And and it is also becoming more and more an issue. In Europe and in France. So therefore we are addressing a growing and emerging need, an ethical need.

The French government bought 40,000 doses earlier this year in and conducted a, a vaccination campaign on Lano. Yeah. And yeah, it’s a beautiful island. It is a beautiful island 

Philip Hemme: in East. Yeah, the Indian Ocean. I think a lot of people don’t know actually that France has controlled the islands, but they have territory quite like quite a lot in like around the world.

It’s and it’s really nice. I mean, so really nice islands as well. I, I’m just on the, I saw and I read the analyst report that. Another European vaccine Co that very Nordic has also basically a direct competitor, and that is also performing pretty well. Like how do you compete with them? Or like how do you differentiate, how is the sales looking like?

Like 

Thomas Lingelbach: look, I, I’m not gonna talk about sales of competitors for sure, or not. It’s public data, I guess. Exactly. You can certainly look it up. No, I would say, the we were the first ones to get marketing authorizations for a chicken goya vaccine. Yeah. You know Bavarian came in second. We have two different technological approaches against the same disease.

Yeah. We have a live attenuated approach which is, as I said. Targeting a vaccine that that really allows protection, long-term protection after the single shot. Yeah. Which is super important for countries where the where you cannot predict when the outbreak is gonna come. Yeah. Because you have rapid response, you have people protected you know the variance vaccine is an inactivated vaccine, VLP based, different product profile but addressing the same disease and probably, you know, the one or the other might be better or less, less good suited for depending on target population, depending on the vaccination jurisdiction. Yes. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. 

Thomas Lingelbach: No, that 

Philip Hemme: sounds good. I will ask about the pipeline and then I will open up for questions so you can prepare already on the pipeline, I think.

[00:22:04] Valneva and Pfizer’s Lyme disease vaccine

Philip Hemme: I talked to, to, I think he is one of your, I mean, retail investor, but he told me that there was a lot of hope on the Zika, on the, the underlying vaccine, because I think you had a, basically there’s, there’s just no nothing out there. It’s a very high unmet need was also high budgets. I think in terms of, or like, let’s say on total addressable market in other revenue can be also really high.

Can you talk about Yeah. Is it, is it true? So let’s, let’s talk 

Thomas Lingelbach: about Lyme is by far the most severe vector transmitted disease transmitted by ticks. And you know that all vector transmitted diseases are at the rise primarily because of global warming. Yeah. So the vector increases, or the vector prevalence increases, hence the disease increases.

And apparently that’s exactly where we are. The, when you look at how many people live in high risk areas of Lyme disease you have about 200 million people in Europe living in high, crazy areas of lime. You have about 80 to 90 million people living in North America in high risk areas of Lyme.

Wow. And the, the medical manifestations of Lyme disease are awful. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: When we started on a Lyme vaccine 12 years ago, there were, you know, probably five, six different clinical manifestations known around Lyme disease. Today there are more than a dozen and, you know, many, many. Of them very severe.

Yeah. 10 to 30% of people develop long lasting symptoms. Wow. And five to 10% of people have persistent symptoms even post antibiotic treatment and heavy antibiotic treatment. And so therefore a prophylactic solution against, lyme disease is definitely would be from a health economical benefit perspective, ideal.

This is also why a potential vaccine is considered by the market as a potential blockbuster indication. Yeah. And and therefore, you know, as I mentioned at the beginning, therefore of course the, the outcome of this study is, will be quite transformational for the company. So when is the readout again?

Well we have partnered this program with Pfizer. We have co-developed together with Pfizer. Pfizer will do the entire regulatory process later, manufacturing and commercialization. Yeah. Pfizer just updated the readout guidance to first half, 2026. Okay. So we hope, of course in the earlier part of the first half, and but by the end of the day, I mean we we just completed the, the last readout of Lyme cases in this in a study that span over three tick seasons.

Yeah. We it is a, a study that a phase three study that was designed as a placebo controlled field efficacy study and with, you know, sites across Europe Canada and the United States. We have not only looked at the efficacy after priming, but also on the efficacy after booster.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: Because this vaccine is likely, at least for the initial years. To require an annual booster shot, and of course now, so more, more revenue, fingers crossed, fingers crossed for for the outcome. And that will be of course a terrific outcome for society. Yeah. And for Eva as well. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: And for a child.

And as we are in a, in a pipeline conference and deal making, I have to ask also about the, the deal itself. I think it’s a, it’s a really nice deal. If I read it is like, what was it? 130 million upfront. Lot of milestone, probably high royalties. I, I found the 19% figure, I dunno if that’s correct, that equity as well from Pfizer investing, but I’m curious is why, why, so Pfizer has a global commercial rights.

If you already have a commercial team, why didn’t you keep some commercial? Right? 

Thomas Lingelbach: Yeah, it’s a good question. So basically we are commercializing today trial vaccines. Yeah. Trial vaccines are marked by distinct commercialization channels. You have distinct travel clinics, your number of, of customers that you need to approach are very limited.

Yeah. Okay. A vaccine, like a vaccine against Lyme disease requires a commercialization down to the general practitioner level. Okay. And this can only be achieved by very, very big, very sizable commercial infrastructures. And we are very glad that we. We’re able to attract Pfizer. Yep. And and as you rightly pointed out since we had the conference where we talk also about deals, I think it’s a fantastic small versus large company collaboration.

Our collaboration has been or has, basically, you can look at it in two pillars. So of course we invested up to the first and including the first phase two study. Then Pfizer came in in exchange of a, of an upfront payment, basically. And why didn’t you try to go a bit further into the, the value creation?

Because we were in need of money and we could not have afforded investing more than that. Yeah. Yeah. So we we basically then. With the upfront entered into a co-development arrangement. So the, this means we worked really jointly in joint teams, but also shared the costs. Yeah. We shared all costs.

40, 60. Okay. So Eva paid 40% of the development costs. Pfizer 60%. And then there are certain milestones that we gonna get upon first commercialization. Yeah. Then later, you know, all costs and all efforts will be carried by Pfizer and and Val Neva will receive in between 14 to 22% royalties on sales, right?

Yeah. And in a staggered way, depending on the sales levels. 

Philip Hemme: Amazing questions from the audience. Now I ask enough questions. Who has a, if you can raise your hand and I don’t know, where’s the mic? There’s the mic if you can, so now of you have a question, don’t be shy. Go for it. Yep. Yeah. And I have time for more questions, so if you can, 

Thomas Lingelbach: ah, thank you Thomas, for your impressive presentation of the company. We followed Intercell from its beginning in Vienna. I’m also based in Vienna. When the times were there when Professor Van Gba and. Then further on, get Te Tel Mele and then use yourself around this company. And we are, we are proud that Vienna has such a, a good and excellent vaccine company.

[00:29:46] Navigating US anti-vaccine turbulence 

Thomas Lingelbach: And one question I have is that is there is a relative negative vaccine environment in the us Thinking of the, of. Of the administration, how do you think the future of vaccines are, are, are coming in the, in the, the broad range? Will vaccines still succeed in this environment? So, of course it’s an excellent topic.

So first of all, I would say the last a hundred plus years have validated and proven that there is no better. Health economical benefit and nothing. No health intervention has prevented more lives than vaccination. And and therefore, you know, we as as a company, me as an individual, I strongly believe that that vaccines.

Can contribute to really making a change to people’s life and will always do because it is cheap. It it is efficacious and and it has definitely the best impact that you can have for vaccine preventable diseases. Of course. And there are still many out there now. The. The current environment that we are seeing which is US focused because we don’t see a similar situation in, in, in Europe is of course alarming in many respects because we see disease diseases coming back that were close to eradication.

And they put pressure on the health economical system. Put pressure on society and they will cost lives at the end. And and that’s of course not nice, especially not for someone like me who has devoted an entire life to vaccines. But I am a strong believer in science will win at a certain point in time.

Science will win again. And, and hopefully overcome political barriers and and, and perception. And and that’s something that I think the entire vaccine industry is counting on. I also do believe that the current situation in the US may allow Europe to become stronger. I believe that Europe can play a pioneering role in novel and modern development approaches, regulatory pathways.

And the, the shift may be for a certain number of years, especially on the development for novel vaccines and novel indications, more European centric than it used to be. A couple of years ago where it was heavily, heavily dominated by by the us. Yeah, 

Philip Hemme: it’s good. Very good question and very good answer as well.

Someone else has a question then I I will continue. It’s great. It’s great the conversation. I can ask whatever question and you’re answering anything. It’s, it’s really good. I hope it’s not too, too harsh. Questions. All good? All good. All good. You’re used to it, all the investment bankers. I guess it’s a, it’s, you’re used to it.

[00:33:33] The stormy biotech investment market 

Philip Hemme: I wanna go a bit into the financials. And I, yeah, obviously you’re publicly listed, so it’s, you have to be careful as well, but I, I just talked to one to one European major, European VC and, and and, and growth fund. And when I told them we were, we would talk, they were like yeah. Market cap must be not, it’s not too easy at the moment.

And I guess maybe it’s very connected to the question as well. Like, I, I, I guess you cannot comment too much on the stock, but how do you look at it a bit or from a fin financial impact? 

Thomas Lingelbach: Well, I mean, look, so the it’s clear that a negative sentiment around vaccination, a negative sentiment of around.

Vaccine developments you know companies even for well established you know, vaccines in the market reduced financial guidances because of less demand. This puts a certain pressure on the vaccine sector as a whole, from a capital markets perspective. I guess investors are worried, so they don’t, they don’t let, well, I, I would say, I would say some are probably.

A bit short term. Worried. Yeah. But most see this as an opportunity. Okay. Because if because nothing is wrong with vaccines, even the opposite, as I mentioned earlier. So this means when the market gets a bit under pressure. And a sector gets a bit under pressure and there’s really a macro trend.

This is a great opportunity to enter, right? And we see many big institutional funds that take the opportunity now to enter the space. And I believe that this is gonna continue. This is the macro side of things. I would say. When you look at Val Neva. Of course we at Val Neva, you see typically you see the normal kind of market reaction that you see ahead of a major catalyst.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: I mean, lime is gonna become or will be. Major catalyst from a capital markets perspective. Yeah. So this means you know, this is a catalyst that can move the stock up by an X and, but can also move it down by an X, right? And so that’s why, you know, those kind of of, of catalyst events always, you know, creating a bit of volatility in the market. But by the end of the day you know, the, then the, the trend goes up. We are, we are close to 80% up year to date. Yeah. And and I think that we will. We probably see, you know, again, a bit up and down. Yeah. Until the, the, the Lyme data readout.

Yeah. 

[00:36:32] Thomas Lingelbach talks financials

Philip Hemme: And then hopefully up And you peaked at, I mean, COVID, I guess was the peak, what was it, 3 billion market cap, the peak or something like this? 

Thomas Lingelbach: Yeah, we had, we, I mean, I’m not counting you know, for any company that. Worked on COVID and experienced this what the capital market called the, the COVID bubble.

I am not counting that as a, as a relevant indication for an enterprise valuation because as I said, this was a bubble not only for Eva, for the bubble was relatively small for Eva, for the bubble, was much bigger for other companies. Yeah. But I would say. When you look at the fundamental value of the company I think today we are we are trading at about 50% discount compared to the analyst consensus.

Okay. Wow. And that should be probably the more relevant indicator. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Do you wanna on the financial still? I, I saw that your really good performance in terms of revenues, I think your H one compared to H one last year, I think you increased revenues quite a lot. But you were also, your net results were also like not a balance or, or a bit negative.

Like how do you Yeah. What. 

Thomas Lingelbach: Not what happened, but yeah, I mean the, the, the, so it is important to note that Val Neva is a biotech company. Our key objective is to invest in research and development of novel vaccines that can. Contribute to a world in no one in which no one dies or suffers from a vaccine preventable disease.

This is our vision. Yeah. This is our mission. This is our vision. Our mission is not to generate profits. And and we still need profits too and love the products. No. Well, I mean, look, I mean we are very happy if we are able to invest more than what we earn for as long as the market believes in this investment to be a better return over time.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: And this is the business model that Val Eva drives. Eva is investing. You know this year in between 80 to 90 million euros in r and d, that’s a lot. Then of course, we could decide tomorrow not to invest in r and d and be a, a profitable mid-size company, but with what prospect? 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: And that’s exactly why we believe that our biotech model is more than justified.

And and we have a great pipeline. We have not talked about chi. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: Which is another, you know, indication where Van Niva could be in a pioneering role globally. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: And we have a couple of other things that we are working on earlier stage. All, you know, highly, highly differentiated, but our investment capacity in the future will depend on Lyme.

Philip Hemme: I like the long-term approach. I like it a lot. 

[00:39:46] Quick-fire questions

Philip Hemme: We have five minutes left and I wanna finish with a quick fire. So more quick questions, quick answer. And one of them was about the US vaccine, but we’ll pass this one. It’s a bit quick. What’s the most common misconception that investors have about vaccines 

Thomas Lingelbach: that vaccines are therapeutic?

Philip Hemme: When is the biotech winter going to end? Biotech What the biotech winter going to end. Never.

One mistake you made in the past three months. 

Thomas Lingelbach: Probably not being optimistic in us with regards to the fact that science will win. 

Philip Hemme: Talking about science. Do, do you understand the anti-VAX movement? Not at the political level, but at the individual level, say in the US or even in, in France or in Europe?

Yes, 

Thomas Lingelbach: because 

Philip Hemme: it’s made up by made up communication. Okay. Do you, do you try to influence people or do you try to convince them? Because what I find super hard is that there’s a lot of facts, but it’s like just. It’s like talking. I mean, I tried, at least I’ve got, it’s really talking to a wall and they refute it to a very, like, not just the fact that they refute.

They refute who provides the fact and who provided the provision, and they refute the whole science and they refute basically everything. I dunno. Eric, what’s your experience there? 

Thomas Lingelbach: I thought you wanted to ask short questions. No, but I but I, but I would say, I would say I am trying to convince people about the benefit and the risk, benefit of vaccination every day in my life.

Philip Hemme: Okay. 

Thomas Lingelbach: And how 

Philip Hemme: important is it that individual people who are like, who take vaccine, who are pro-vaccine, try to influence their own. Circles at the 

Thomas Lingelbach: individual level. They, they do a lot. It’s very important and they do a lot. And and this has created some very, very positive results in the world of vaccines.

But but right now again, you see also what negative miscommunication can can do. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Thomas Lingelbach: And but by the end of the day it’s all about. You know, you cannot manage perception. You can only do transparent communication and fact-based communication. And that’s all you can do. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah.

Thomas Lingelbach: Okay. One of your biotech heroes or mentors? I would say Jean Lance has been my key mentor. He was, the long lasting CEO for Cron Corporation. 

Philip Hemme: Okay. Where you worked before. Yeah. Can you tell a bit more on like, some examples of what some of the lessons you had with, or like one, one lesson maybe, or one thing that struck you with him?

Thomas Lingelbach: I think what I’ve learned from him, it’s in our industry, it’s all about resilience. Good. 

Philip Hemme: One last question. One advice to 40 years old Thomas. To a 40-year-old Thomas, stay. Cool. Amazing. Thanks, Thomas. Good more than welcome. Thanks everyone. Thank you.

I am impressed by Van’s determination over so many years to bring new vaccines to many patients. I’m also impressed by Thomas honesty and openness, even if I was pushing him pretty hard. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the like follow with review button. Any of his actions would help a lot more people discover the podcast.

If you would like to support us even further, you can make a donation by clicking on the link. In the description below, if you would like to see similar videos, please feel free to check out our channel where we have many more. I would also be curious to hear what you think. So if you could leave a comment where we are or shoot me an email at Philip at Flo bio.

P-H-I-L-I-P at Ft Bio. Alright, thanks for staying to the end and see you next episode.